Sermon: Tracing the Lines by Rev. Jessica Johnson
Date: December 2, 2018
***This was more of an informal lecture and discussion than a sermon that morning.
Key Scripture Passages:
Objective: The genealogies of Jesus include connections to the Old Testament as well as including women, which was unusual but intentional.
Introduction
Knowing where we came from through DNA tests and genealogies have become a new past time in the U.S. There are commercials all over T.V. about how you can learn about where you came from. Knowing who we are and where we came from is important to most of us.
Yet, when it comes to the Bible, how many of you tend to skip over the genealogies? In October, for our Habits of the Mind book club, we read Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament by Christopher J.H. Wright. That book has given me a new appreciation for the genealogies found in the Bible. There are two main reasons that I wanted to explore and compare the two genealogies of Jesus (Matthew 1:1-17 and Luke 3:23-28).
First, almost all of the major OT covenants of have been included. There were five major covenants of the OT and the New Covenant of Christ. Since Adam and Eve were cast out of Eden, God has sought reconciliation with humanity through His chosen people, the nation of Israel. Israel fell in and out of favor with God which resulted in either blessings or punishments. Throughout the Old Testament, God made covenants with some of His most faithful followers: Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David. God’s promises in the Old Testament promise a Messiah that will bring salvation for humanity. As the Old Testament closes with Malachi 4:1-6, God is still seeking renewed relationship with His people, and the people are still waiting for the Messiah. The New Testament opens with the genealogy and birth of Christ. Within the story of the incarnation of Christ, there is the story of God’s covenant with Mary about her son, Jesus the Promised Messiah.
God’s Covenants
Read both genealogies for Jesus (Matthew 1:1-17 and Luke 3:23-28). As I tell you about the covenants of the OT, search for the names of the people that God made a covenant with. Now Matthew mentions some, and Luke mentions others.
A covenant is a promise. In the Old Testament, there were 5 major covenants God made with people that outline “salvation history.” There were typically two types of covenants that God used: the royal grant or the suzerain-vassal. The royal grant was a covenant that contained unconditional promises of blessings that God bestowed on His people. The suzerain-vassal was a covenant that was conditional upon the response of humans and usually involved a task of some kind. If they followed God, then they were blessed. However, if they broke faith and disobeyed, then they were punished. The structure of God’s covenant typically contained three parts: God’s Initiatives, God’s Promises, and Human Response (Wright 1992). Let’s look at the five major covenants.
Creational or Noahic Covenant
The first covenant is known as the Noahic or Creational covenant, and it is a royal grant. The LORD had just destroyed the earth with a flood, but He had saved Noah and his family. Out of gratitude, Noah offered a sacrifice to the LORD to honor Him. The LORD was pleased with the offering, and He promised never to destroy earth again in such a manner. The covenant God makes with Noah is found in Genesis 9:1-17. God initiated this covenant, because He was delighted by Noah’s faithfulness and offering (Genesis 8:21-22). The promise is made to Noah but is universal, because God promises to maintain the world and the human race. God also renews the dominion of man over the earth that He had given to Adam when everything was created. On a side note, up until this point in history, God had given man plants for food, but now, man may also eat animals (References: Genesis 1:29-30, 2:15-17, 3:17-19, 9:2-4). God also promises punishment upon any man or animal that sheds human blood. The expected human response here is that humans will have respect for life by repopulating the earth and by not shedding human blood or drinking animal blood. The Noahic Covenant is about various aspects of preserving the life of the human race, and the LORD places the rainbow in the sky as a sign of His promise (Wright 1992).
Abrahamic Covenant
The second covenant is the Abrahamic covenant, which began as a suzerain-vassal and ended as a royal grant. God initiates this covenant with Abraham due to his faithfulness. The covenant is universal as well as specifically addressing Abraham’s family and contained three promises. First, there was the promise of prosperity. God would bless Abraham’s family and his descendants would become a great nation through which God would bless all people and all nations. Second, God would have a special relationship with His people. As long as they obeyed Him, then He would be present among them, bless them, and protect them. Third, God promised land to Abraham and his descendants (Wright 1992). At first, God required Abraham to leave his father’s land, the land of his people (Genesis 12) in order to receive God’s blessings. Later, it was simply due to the righteousness of Abraham that God renewed His covenant (Genesis 15). The humans were expected to respond with the practice of circumcision, obedience to God, and through their faithfulness all people would be blessed (Wright 1992).
Mosaic or Sinai Covenant
The Mosaic or Sinai covenant is the third major covenant and was a suzerain-vassal. The nation of Israel is wandering in the desert after escaping from Egypt. Due to the faithfulness of Moses, God makes a promise with Him. God gives Israel an identity as His chosen people, a holy and priestly nation, through which He would bless all people. This covenant contained four promises from God: redemption from their oppressors, special relationship with God, knowledge of God, and the Promised Land (Wright 1992). In addition to these promises, God gave the people the gift of His law. It provided guidance for the people to reunite with God and a way for the people to know God. The nation of Israel was expected to be faithful to God and to be obedient to His law (Exodus 24). The fulfillment of the Mosaic covenant would also fulfill the Abrahamic covenant. However, this still would not be the end, but just another step in “salvation history” in order to bring all peoples and nations back to God (Wright 1992). Interestingly enough, even though this covenant includes a promise of redemption, this is the one that I could not find represented in either of genealogy.
Davidic Covenant
The Davidic covenant is the fourth major covenant. The LORD said that David was a man after His own heart (References: 1 Samuel 13:14, Acts 13:22). David desired to build a temple to house the Ark of the Covenant. For his faithfulness, God made a covenant with David. He initiated it through the prophet Nathan. This covenant contained both a royal grant and a suzerain-vassal. The royal grant was towards David and his descendants and the promise that they would rule forever. David was promised that through him there would be a great nation, a special relationship with God, and a son, an heir. The suzerain-vassal was with each individual king in David’s line. If they followed God, then they were blessed. But if they did not, then they were punished (Wright 1992). Davidic covenant hints at the promise of the Messiah in God’s promise of a son and heir to David.
But here is where the genealogies really split. Matthew’s genealogy follows the line from David down through his son, Solomon, but Luke’s genealogy follows the line from David down through his son Nathan. There are a variety of theories out there, but the one that seems the most logical to me is this: First, the Luke one is the actual physical lineage while the Matthew one is the legal or royal blood line. Now the difference could be that Nathan died and according to levirate marriage laws, Solomon then married Nathan’s wife and took care of his family. So, the descendants would be Nathan’s by natural birth but Solomon’s by legal rights. There is also a theory that this applies to the issue of Joseph having two fathers, Jacob and Heli.
Another reason that Luke is physical while Matthew is legal could be, because Matthew is the line of Joseph while Luke’s is the line of Mary. By law, Joseph and Mary would be from the same tribe, because it was against the law for marriages to occur between tribes. So, it would make sense that they would both be from the tribe of Judah. Another reason is that Matthew’s line includes Jechoniah. In Jeremiah, Jechoniah was cursed that none of his offspring would once again sit on the throne of David. Yet the Messiah is supposed to. Jesus was not Joseph’s son by natural means but by legal means. Therefore, it still fulfills the prophecy, because Jesus was not a direct offspring of Jechoniah, but He was of the royal line of David (naturally and legally through both parents).
The New Covenant
The genealogies culminate in the final covenant, which is the New Covenant. The nation of Israel fell in and out of favor with God throughout history. Despite God’s covenants and law, Israel did not successfully reunite with God, and they needed something more. Therefore, God made a new covenant, and this covenant still remains today. God promises a new relationship with God, the forgiveness of sins, a new Davidic king, a new abundance of nature, and that He would enable all people to know Him and know His law (Wright 1992). This is the Jesus, the Christ, the promised Messiah.
Notable Names
In addition to the mention of the historic covenants between God and man in the genealogies, they are interesting because of some of the other notable names included. We know of Abraham’s son, Isaac, and his son, Jacob, from the OT stories. Stemming from Jacob were the twelve tribes of Israel, and we learn from both Matthew and Luke that Jesus belonged to the Judah tribe, known as the royal tribe.
Of incredible interest, there are 4 women (other than Mary the mother of Jesus) mentioned in Matthew’s genealogy. It was extremely unusual from women to be mentioned in genealogies, and these weren’t just any women. They were well-known in the Hebrew Scriptures.
Tamar (Genesis 38): She was a Canaanite married to Er, the firstborn son of Judah. He died and left her childless. So Judah married her off to his 2nd born, Onan. But he did not want to father a child that would not legally be his, and then he died, leaving her still childless. Judah broke his promise to her out of fear, so she tricked him. She had Perez (included in both genealogies) by tricking Judah. This story is about the breaking of levirate marriage laws in more ways than one.
Rahab (Joshua 2, 6): Rahab was an Amorite and a prostitute in Jericho. She housed and kept safe two of the spies that Joshua sent into Jericho. She believed in God. Her family and she were saved and lived amongst the Israelites from the fall of Jericho forward. She married Salmon, one of the spies she sheltered. He was one of the princes of the tribe of Judah and in one of the leading houses of Israel. Her story is one of faith, grace, and redemption.
Ruth (the book of Ruth): Ruth was a Moabite woman married to a man from the tribe of Judah. The man, his brother, and his father all died. Naomi, her mother-in-law, was all that was left. Naomi told her two daughters-in-law to go back to their families. However, Ruth, out of loyalty, stayed with Naomi. Naomi felt an obligation to her (again under the marriage laws) and got her married to Boaz. Boaz was an honorable man who protected her and who followed the laws by checking with kin closer to her first, but they said no. So, he took her as a wife for himself. It is a story of loyalty, faithfulness, honor, obedience to the marriage laws, and love.
Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11, 12; 1 Chronicles 3:5): Her heritage is a bit unclear, but there is a theory that she is not Hebrew. After the murder of her husband, Uriah the Hittite, she became the wife of David, and mother of five sons by him. The first died in infancy. The others were Solomon, Shimea, Shobub and Nathan. Solomon is mentioned in Matthew’s genealogy while Nathan is the son mentioned in Luke’s. She was a strong mother who ensured that Solomon succeeded David on the throne.
Mary (Matthew 1 and Luke 3): She is the virgin mother of Jesus Christ. She became pregnant due to the Holy Spirit before she married Joseph. Joseph did not lie with her until after Jesus was born. Jesus would have been Joseph’s legal son but not his physical son.
They all had unusual marriages and pregnancies. Most of the women mentioned (other than Mary) were not Jewish. They came from other nationalities. This shows that Jesus had both Jewish and Gentile blood. It is yet just another demonstration that He came for all people.
Further Suggested Study:
Further Suggested Reading (and my primary reference for this lesson other than the Holy Bible):
Wright, Christopher J. H. Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1992.
Who else do you find notable in the genealogies of Jesus and why?
For me, it was Adam, Seth, and Enoch.
Date: December 2, 2018
***This was more of an informal lecture and discussion than a sermon that morning.
Key Scripture Passages:
- Matthew 1:1-17 and Luke 3:23-28
Objective: The genealogies of Jesus include connections to the Old Testament as well as including women, which was unusual but intentional.
Introduction
Knowing where we came from through DNA tests and genealogies have become a new past time in the U.S. There are commercials all over T.V. about how you can learn about where you came from. Knowing who we are and where we came from is important to most of us.
Yet, when it comes to the Bible, how many of you tend to skip over the genealogies? In October, for our Habits of the Mind book club, we read Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament by Christopher J.H. Wright. That book has given me a new appreciation for the genealogies found in the Bible. There are two main reasons that I wanted to explore and compare the two genealogies of Jesus (Matthew 1:1-17 and Luke 3:23-28).
First, almost all of the major OT covenants of have been included. There were five major covenants of the OT and the New Covenant of Christ. Since Adam and Eve were cast out of Eden, God has sought reconciliation with humanity through His chosen people, the nation of Israel. Israel fell in and out of favor with God which resulted in either blessings or punishments. Throughout the Old Testament, God made covenants with some of His most faithful followers: Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David. God’s promises in the Old Testament promise a Messiah that will bring salvation for humanity. As the Old Testament closes with Malachi 4:1-6, God is still seeking renewed relationship with His people, and the people are still waiting for the Messiah. The New Testament opens with the genealogy and birth of Christ. Within the story of the incarnation of Christ, there is the story of God’s covenant with Mary about her son, Jesus the Promised Messiah.
God’s Covenants
Read both genealogies for Jesus (Matthew 1:1-17 and Luke 3:23-28). As I tell you about the covenants of the OT, search for the names of the people that God made a covenant with. Now Matthew mentions some, and Luke mentions others.
A covenant is a promise. In the Old Testament, there were 5 major covenants God made with people that outline “salvation history.” There were typically two types of covenants that God used: the royal grant or the suzerain-vassal. The royal grant was a covenant that contained unconditional promises of blessings that God bestowed on His people. The suzerain-vassal was a covenant that was conditional upon the response of humans and usually involved a task of some kind. If they followed God, then they were blessed. However, if they broke faith and disobeyed, then they were punished. The structure of God’s covenant typically contained three parts: God’s Initiatives, God’s Promises, and Human Response (Wright 1992). Let’s look at the five major covenants.
Creational or Noahic Covenant
The first covenant is known as the Noahic or Creational covenant, and it is a royal grant. The LORD had just destroyed the earth with a flood, but He had saved Noah and his family. Out of gratitude, Noah offered a sacrifice to the LORD to honor Him. The LORD was pleased with the offering, and He promised never to destroy earth again in such a manner. The covenant God makes with Noah is found in Genesis 9:1-17. God initiated this covenant, because He was delighted by Noah’s faithfulness and offering (Genesis 8:21-22). The promise is made to Noah but is universal, because God promises to maintain the world and the human race. God also renews the dominion of man over the earth that He had given to Adam when everything was created. On a side note, up until this point in history, God had given man plants for food, but now, man may also eat animals (References: Genesis 1:29-30, 2:15-17, 3:17-19, 9:2-4). God also promises punishment upon any man or animal that sheds human blood. The expected human response here is that humans will have respect for life by repopulating the earth and by not shedding human blood or drinking animal blood. The Noahic Covenant is about various aspects of preserving the life of the human race, and the LORD places the rainbow in the sky as a sign of His promise (Wright 1992).
Abrahamic Covenant
The second covenant is the Abrahamic covenant, which began as a suzerain-vassal and ended as a royal grant. God initiates this covenant with Abraham due to his faithfulness. The covenant is universal as well as specifically addressing Abraham’s family and contained three promises. First, there was the promise of prosperity. God would bless Abraham’s family and his descendants would become a great nation through which God would bless all people and all nations. Second, God would have a special relationship with His people. As long as they obeyed Him, then He would be present among them, bless them, and protect them. Third, God promised land to Abraham and his descendants (Wright 1992). At first, God required Abraham to leave his father’s land, the land of his people (Genesis 12) in order to receive God’s blessings. Later, it was simply due to the righteousness of Abraham that God renewed His covenant (Genesis 15). The humans were expected to respond with the practice of circumcision, obedience to God, and through their faithfulness all people would be blessed (Wright 1992).
Mosaic or Sinai Covenant
The Mosaic or Sinai covenant is the third major covenant and was a suzerain-vassal. The nation of Israel is wandering in the desert after escaping from Egypt. Due to the faithfulness of Moses, God makes a promise with Him. God gives Israel an identity as His chosen people, a holy and priestly nation, through which He would bless all people. This covenant contained four promises from God: redemption from their oppressors, special relationship with God, knowledge of God, and the Promised Land (Wright 1992). In addition to these promises, God gave the people the gift of His law. It provided guidance for the people to reunite with God and a way for the people to know God. The nation of Israel was expected to be faithful to God and to be obedient to His law (Exodus 24). The fulfillment of the Mosaic covenant would also fulfill the Abrahamic covenant. However, this still would not be the end, but just another step in “salvation history” in order to bring all peoples and nations back to God (Wright 1992). Interestingly enough, even though this covenant includes a promise of redemption, this is the one that I could not find represented in either of genealogy.
Davidic Covenant
The Davidic covenant is the fourth major covenant. The LORD said that David was a man after His own heart (References: 1 Samuel 13:14, Acts 13:22). David desired to build a temple to house the Ark of the Covenant. For his faithfulness, God made a covenant with David. He initiated it through the prophet Nathan. This covenant contained both a royal grant and a suzerain-vassal. The royal grant was towards David and his descendants and the promise that they would rule forever. David was promised that through him there would be a great nation, a special relationship with God, and a son, an heir. The suzerain-vassal was with each individual king in David’s line. If they followed God, then they were blessed. But if they did not, then they were punished (Wright 1992). Davidic covenant hints at the promise of the Messiah in God’s promise of a son and heir to David.
But here is where the genealogies really split. Matthew’s genealogy follows the line from David down through his son, Solomon, but Luke’s genealogy follows the line from David down through his son Nathan. There are a variety of theories out there, but the one that seems the most logical to me is this: First, the Luke one is the actual physical lineage while the Matthew one is the legal or royal blood line. Now the difference could be that Nathan died and according to levirate marriage laws, Solomon then married Nathan’s wife and took care of his family. So, the descendants would be Nathan’s by natural birth but Solomon’s by legal rights. There is also a theory that this applies to the issue of Joseph having two fathers, Jacob and Heli.
Another reason that Luke is physical while Matthew is legal could be, because Matthew is the line of Joseph while Luke’s is the line of Mary. By law, Joseph and Mary would be from the same tribe, because it was against the law for marriages to occur between tribes. So, it would make sense that they would both be from the tribe of Judah. Another reason is that Matthew’s line includes Jechoniah. In Jeremiah, Jechoniah was cursed that none of his offspring would once again sit on the throne of David. Yet the Messiah is supposed to. Jesus was not Joseph’s son by natural means but by legal means. Therefore, it still fulfills the prophecy, because Jesus was not a direct offspring of Jechoniah, but He was of the royal line of David (naturally and legally through both parents).
The New Covenant
The genealogies culminate in the final covenant, which is the New Covenant. The nation of Israel fell in and out of favor with God throughout history. Despite God’s covenants and law, Israel did not successfully reunite with God, and they needed something more. Therefore, God made a new covenant, and this covenant still remains today. God promises a new relationship with God, the forgiveness of sins, a new Davidic king, a new abundance of nature, and that He would enable all people to know Him and know His law (Wright 1992). This is the Jesus, the Christ, the promised Messiah.
Notable Names
In addition to the mention of the historic covenants between God and man in the genealogies, they are interesting because of some of the other notable names included. We know of Abraham’s son, Isaac, and his son, Jacob, from the OT stories. Stemming from Jacob were the twelve tribes of Israel, and we learn from both Matthew and Luke that Jesus belonged to the Judah tribe, known as the royal tribe.
Of incredible interest, there are 4 women (other than Mary the mother of Jesus) mentioned in Matthew’s genealogy. It was extremely unusual from women to be mentioned in genealogies, and these weren’t just any women. They were well-known in the Hebrew Scriptures.
Tamar (Genesis 38): She was a Canaanite married to Er, the firstborn son of Judah. He died and left her childless. So Judah married her off to his 2nd born, Onan. But he did not want to father a child that would not legally be his, and then he died, leaving her still childless. Judah broke his promise to her out of fear, so she tricked him. She had Perez (included in both genealogies) by tricking Judah. This story is about the breaking of levirate marriage laws in more ways than one.
Rahab (Joshua 2, 6): Rahab was an Amorite and a prostitute in Jericho. She housed and kept safe two of the spies that Joshua sent into Jericho. She believed in God. Her family and she were saved and lived amongst the Israelites from the fall of Jericho forward. She married Salmon, one of the spies she sheltered. He was one of the princes of the tribe of Judah and in one of the leading houses of Israel. Her story is one of faith, grace, and redemption.
Ruth (the book of Ruth): Ruth was a Moabite woman married to a man from the tribe of Judah. The man, his brother, and his father all died. Naomi, her mother-in-law, was all that was left. Naomi told her two daughters-in-law to go back to their families. However, Ruth, out of loyalty, stayed with Naomi. Naomi felt an obligation to her (again under the marriage laws) and got her married to Boaz. Boaz was an honorable man who protected her and who followed the laws by checking with kin closer to her first, but they said no. So, he took her as a wife for himself. It is a story of loyalty, faithfulness, honor, obedience to the marriage laws, and love.
Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11, 12; 1 Chronicles 3:5): Her heritage is a bit unclear, but there is a theory that she is not Hebrew. After the murder of her husband, Uriah the Hittite, she became the wife of David, and mother of five sons by him. The first died in infancy. The others were Solomon, Shimea, Shobub and Nathan. Solomon is mentioned in Matthew’s genealogy while Nathan is the son mentioned in Luke’s. She was a strong mother who ensured that Solomon succeeded David on the throne.
Mary (Matthew 1 and Luke 3): She is the virgin mother of Jesus Christ. She became pregnant due to the Holy Spirit before she married Joseph. Joseph did not lie with her until after Jesus was born. Jesus would have been Joseph’s legal son but not his physical son.
They all had unusual marriages and pregnancies. Most of the women mentioned (other than Mary) were not Jewish. They came from other nationalities. This shows that Jesus had both Jewish and Gentile blood. It is yet just another demonstration that He came for all people.
Further Suggested Study:
- Matthew 1:1-17
- Luke 3:23-28
- Matthew 1:18-25
- Genesis 9:1-17
- Genesis 12 and 15
- Exodus 19:5-6
- Deuteronomy 22:13-30
- I Samuel 3:1-10
- 2 Samuel 7
- Isaiah 7:14
- Jeremiah 31:31-34
- Malachi 4:1-6
Further Suggested Reading (and my primary reference for this lesson other than the Holy Bible):
Wright, Christopher J. H. Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1992.
Who else do you find notable in the genealogies of Jesus and why?
For me, it was Adam, Seth, and Enoch.
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